Wednesday, January 14, 2009

parenting question #472

what is your policy on sleepovers?
C was invited to a birthday party, a sleepover and David is uncomfortable with it because we do not know the parents. It is not some child he met on the street corner, they go to school together and as far as I know they aren't sacrificing a goat or anything(at least it wasn't mentioned on the invite). It is a group of kids from his class invited to a sleepover birthday party sort of what we are planning on doing for C this summer with kids whose parents we don't really know. Sleepovers were a huge part of my kidhood both at my house & at other people's houses and I do not see the big deal. Yes I know bad things happen I don't have my head in the sand but we will not be covering some of more more paranoid overprotective fears in the blog today. C has been allowed to attend sleepovers with 2 other children that honestly we didn't know their parents all that well either so I am not sure how to convince hubs that this will be okay. Or we have the alternative telling C sorry no fun party with your friends you get to be the kid who is stuck at home with your parents.

5 comments:

Bro. Byron said...

We always meet the parents first or at least have a conversation on the phone with them. I've got to be really, really comfortable with the parents before I'll let one of mine spend the night at their house. Usually we start out with letting them go over to play for a couple of hours and then later talk about the sleepover.

overtly trite said...

I am going to call the mom this afternoon-how do you casually ask if there are in serial killers in their family background? I guess I am not as concerned because it is a group of kids for a party if it were just a one kid sleepover I would be so much more hesitant. we'll see I suppose

Chris Curtin said...

Hi Paula,

We talk to the parents and start with basic stuff like what are they doing, what movies to they let their kids watch, how late do they stay up etc.

Then always ask about weapons. No offense to our southern friends, but sometimes the views on having weapons around the house doesn't match with our Yankee up bringing.

We also ask about pets under the guise of allergies, but to find out if there are pit bulls or something else to be worried about.

Finally, we ask about older siblings. You know how you corrupted Pat and Christian, so I worry about the older ones ;-)

Chris

overtly trite said...

now Chris I think you are confusing me with another older sibling from your gene pool that I believed lived in NJ?

overtly trite said...

breaking news hmmm Chris and Pat raod tripped to MA as well? Wonder who thye would have visited up there :)